Queanbeyan Water Polo players look to make mark on Kiwis

By
Joshua Matic

July 3, 2014, 1:35 p.m.

QUEANBEYAN'S football code teams may be well and truly into full gear heading towards the business end of the hectic winter season, but the city's representatives of a different kind will embark across the Tasman on Saturday.

QUEANBEYAN'S football code teams may be well and truly into full gear heading towards the business end of the hectic winter season, but the city's representatives of a different kind will embark across the Tasman on Saturday.

Meet junior Water Polo stars Jake Frazer, Nicholas Taylor, Rea Braun, Grace Chipperfield and Harrison Bergman, who will join Queanbeyan seniors in sisters Melissa and Natalie Taylor on a trip to New Zealand to compete in the Pan Pacific Youth Water Polo Festival.

They will each represent the Canberra Water Polo Academy at the event, which billed as the largest in the southern hemisphere and is held bi-annually in Auckland.

The juniors will represent the under 16s age division, while the seniors will play as under 20s.

Young gun Braun is not unfamiliar being in the spotlight. She has competed in little athletics, gymnastics, Australian football and soccer in the past, but she said her new-found love is Water Polo.

"I've dedicated so much of my life to it now. I've pretty much got nothing in my life except Water Polo," the 15-year old Jerrabomberra resident said.

Braun has played the sport for two years now and will travel to Auckland for the first time.

She said the Canberra Academy teams had been training hard with a mix of experience and young blood.

"I think the others will underestimate us, and then we'll come through and show them what we've got," she said.